“You can’t lose three straight games this time of year. We got a power-play goal early, and I think it gave us some confidence the rest of the night.”

Brandon Dubinsky and Cam Atkinson also scored for the Blue Jackets, and defenseman James Wisniewski had three assists.

Goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky left after one period because of the flu, but backup Curtis McElhinney stopped 22 of 23 shots for his first win since Jan. 11.

The win allowed the Blue Jackets to leap three teams in the Eastern Conference standings — Washington, Toronto and Detroit — and land back in a playoff spot. The Jackets are seventh in the conference and hold the first wild-card spot.

“Now we control our own destiny,” Wisniewski said. “It’s up to us if we make the playoffs or not. We don’t have to worry about other teams if we take care of it ourselves.”

They had the power play to thank last night.

Before the game, associate coach Craig Hartsburg — who coaches the power play — addressed the team, assuring them that every team endures a slump at some point during the season.

But an 0-for-36 free fall couldn’t end soon enough.

“For us, it was just a crappy time” to struggle, Wisniewski said.

“We just wanted to get some movement on the puck. Be snappy with it. And maybe now we’ll get a fortunate bounce. We haven’t had one of those forever, it seems.”

The Blue Jackets went on the power play only 42 seconds into the game and had a 1-0 lead with only 95 seconds off the clock.

Johansen skated through the right circle, fired on Red Wings goaltender Jimmy Howard and scored off his own rebound.

“The puck had been rimmed around, and it bounced over our sticks a couple times at the blue line, and you’re saying ‘Here we go again,’ ” Richards said. “But we just kept going. We needed that goal for a lot of reasons, and I was glad to see the guys get rewarded.”

Another power-play goal, by Dubinsky at 12:46 of the first period, made the score 2-0. This one, clearly, was a fortunate bounce.

Dubinsky’s pass across the slot to Atkinson was directed into the net behind Howard by Red Wings defenseman Danny DeKeyser.

The Red Wings tied the game on two goals by Gustav Nyquist, but Atkinson’s goal off a rush at 6:58 of the third gave the Jackets the lead for good.

Johansen’s empty-net goal with 5.4 seconds remaining improved the Blue Jackets to 7-1-1 in their past nine games against the Red Wings.

“We play a game they don’t like to play,” Johansen said. “We just get up in their faces all night.”

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